Effect of Information Usage on Rice Prodction in Thailand

Abstract

Thailand is one of the major countries in exporting rice, but the production does not reach to high level because of the large prevalence accounting for more than 60% of lowland rainfed rice. Therefore, Thailand has largely focused on increasing higher productivity by applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In order to ensure foods safety, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) was introduced in the early 2000s in Thailand. This study aims to identify the effect of production-related seed and input (fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide) information on rice production in Conventional Agriculture (CA) and GAP farms. This study was conducted in 9 provinces in the Central and Northeast Plains that produce nearly 70% of rice in Thailand. A total of 642 farms were surveyed in 2022, consisting of 338 CA and 304 GAP farms. In addition, it studies a causal relationship using the source of information as an instrumental variable to solve endogeneity in which information usage might be increased due to high rice production, vice versa. The results show that most farmers gain information from community leaders by 43% to 45%, farm group leaders by 21% to 31%, and members in farm groups by 8% to 12% both within and beyond the village. Based on the farm-level production function, when agricultural land size, labor, and input cost increase by 1%, rice production increases by 0.87%, 0.03%, and 0.01% for CA farms, respectively. For GAP farms, when agricultural land size, labor, and machine cost increase by 1%, rice production increases by 0.84%, 0.08%, and 0.06%, respectively. When farmers use the input and seed information, it increases rice production by 0.06% for GAP farms on average. However, seed information doesnt affect CA farms, and only input information does have an impact on rice production by 0.07%. This means that GAP farmers are more willing to reflect seed and input information in their production than CA farmers. Therefore, CA should be provided with incentives to increase attendance in rice training and even designate leading farms next to CA farms in order to promote the utilization of agricultural information that can lead to an increase in rice production. However, when referring to farm inputs and production-related information, it resulted to have a similar impact in increasing rice production in Thailand. Therefore, information will be as effective as the cost of labor.